It is the purpose of the invention to provide a cold work steel which can be used inter alia for the above applications and which therefore should have the following features:                Good ductility/toughness        Good hardenability allowing through hardening in connection with conventional hardening in a vacuum furnace of products with thicknesses up to at least 300 mm,        Adequate hardness, at least 60 HRC, after hardening and high temperature tempering, which gives a high resistance against plastic deformation and, at least as far as certain applications are concerned, also an adequate wear resistance without nitriding or surface coating with titanium carbide and/or titanium nitride or the like by means of e.g. PVD- or CVD-technique,        Good tempering resistance in order to allow nitriding or surface coating with titanium carbide and/or titanium nitride or the like by e.g. any of said techniques without reduction of the hardness of the material, for applications which require particularly good wear resistance of the tool.        
Other important product features are:                Good dimension stability during heat treatment,        Long fatigue life,        Good grindability, machinability, spark machinability, and polishability.        
Specifically, the invention aims at providing a matrix steel which can be employed for the above applications, i.e. a steel which is essentially void of primary carbides and which in use condition has a matrix consisting of tempered martensite.